PhD Chemodanova M.F., Semenova L.V.

National University of Pharmacy, Ukraine

E-learning vs classroom teaching

This article focuses on this issue and is concerned with growing importance of E-learning as knowledge scaffolding, and the emerging significance of E-learning systems success at the universities. The main intention of this article is in looking at how knowledge focuses on such processes as acquiring, creating and sharing in the development of these E-learning programmers while keeping to the educational goal of graduating lifelong learners.

In today’s information driven economy, companies uncover the most opportunities and ultimately derive the most value from intellectual rather than physical assets. To get the most value from a company’s intellectual assets, KM practitioners maintain that knowledge must be shared and it should serve as the foundation for collaboration. There are numerous resources associated with KM but it is only in recent times that e- learning has been identified as a strategic resource that can be utilized in an increasing diversity of venues (home, workplace cultural and entertainment venues, as well as traditional institutions of learning, education, and training).

E-learning offers learners the ability to learn anywhere, anytime and at their own pace. As the economy becomes more global and the use of PCs more pervasive, there has been a dramatic increase in e-learning, also known as computer based training.

There is increasing evidence of the success of alternate learning methods, such as e-learning, and the benefits of its growing adoption in the universities. Failing to implement a learning technique that ensures the swift and efficient roll out of teaching methods and applications across universities can have damaging consequences. Given the complexities of installation and support, it is important to choose a partner with credibility and experience that is capable of delivering the e-learning revolution to the universities

Learning is not only a lifelong requirement; its scope and character are also changing, and is itself a term that will demand ongoing reassessment, particularly in learning context. It is little wand E-learning is taking off, because universities are not only using it to drive strategic organizational goals. Unlike so much training in the past, E-learning is capable of being tightly integrated into what the university must achieve, not what students feel is good for them.

The e-learning can be used to build knowledge, skills and experience at the universities. In its simplest form, E-learning deploys electronic media in training delivery, by using computers, internet, intranet and to a lesser extent CDs. However, E-learning can also combine a variety of texts content delivery forms to offer students true blended learning.

Blended learning allows the instructional designer the opportunity to leverage the strengths of instructional media with the efficacy of the instructional components to ensure the instructional goal is attained. For a blended learning solution to be successful, it is imperative a thorough media analysis and needs assessment to be conducted while addressing the fundamental components of the instructional systems design process

The E-Learning environment is not only scalable, it is extendible. It can be opened to partners and other affiliated universities for example to provide product data for video conferences. Multiple corporate databases merged into large, integrated multidimensional knowledge bases that are designed to support competitive intelligence and organizational memory. These centralized knowledge repositories will optimize information collection, organization, and retrieval. They will offer knowledge enriching features that support the seamless interoperability and flow of information and knowledge. These features may include the incorporation of video and audio clips, links to external authoritative sources, content qualifiers in the form of source or reference metadata, and annotation capabilities to capture tacit knowledge. Content will be in the form of small reusable learning objects and associated metadata that provides contextual information to assist KM reasoning and delivery systems.

An important part of any E-Learning software offerings is content. This may be drawn from a variety of sources including off the shelf packages, customized in-house learning in collaboration with content partners and access to external sources through learning portal –corporate academies, universities and specialist providers

In conclusion, if universities hope to play their rightful role leading the knowledge revolution, they will have to emulate the organic systems found in life that use knowledge so brilliantly and so naturally. To make work effectively it must be local and personalized. The question is what technology and infrastructure is required to support the educational variables of inquiry that also could be grown to support broader institutional needs.

With E-learning software, students and employees can log on and learn directly from their desktops, they can be trained better and more quickly at a lower cost. Yet students cannot be expected to know everything. E-learning also helps to provide effective ‘just in time’ learning to enable employees to have all the relevant skills and information in hand when speaking to customers. There is a need for developing a better and more accurate understanding of KM as enabler of information strategy for the e-learning education. Departing from the information-processing perspective that was relevant to the educational environment, a new perspective of E-learning was explained and discussed. There is clearly a need to manage such knowledge and KM claims to address this in Universities and the educational environment.